Speaker 1: This is, he said, a Yaviho with Eric Winter and
Speaker 1: Rodlin fantaz.
Speaker 2: Hi. Right, everybody, welcome to another episode of he said,
Speaker 2: he said, because my wife is not here again, but
Speaker 2: since she's gone, I wanted to bring in a friend
Speaker 2: of mine who shares a similar passion of mine as well.
Speaker 2: We're going to go to sort in the man cave
Speaker 2: of watches, which is one of my collectible passions. But
Speaker 2: this is also a man with a completely other background
Speaker 2: before he got into watches, Nick Ferrell, who and I
Speaker 2: can't wait to dive into more about his journey which
Speaker 2: led him to his current passion now. But worked with
Speaker 2: the government for many, many many years, and that in
Speaker 2: turn led to a career in now you know, bringing
Speaker 2: a vintage watches to the forefront of everybody's life in
Speaker 2: a big way. And even on my show The Rookie,
Speaker 2: I wear one of Nick's watches, which is a vintage
Speaker 2: when he got back he got for me for Bradford
Speaker 2: to wear on the show. We can talk about that.
Speaker 2: But Nick, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3: Hey, Eric, thanks a lot, thanks for having me on here.
Speaker 2: Can't absolutely I'm excited. No, Nick, let's let's just dive
Speaker 2: back into your past a bit. So you're a young
Speaker 2: man the first career. Did you ever think I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go down the path of working for the government. That
Speaker 2: was where you wanted to be?
Speaker 3: Were you?
Speaker 2: You were military as well? Am I am?
Speaker 3: I correct, not active military, but I was employed as
Speaker 3: a civilian with the primary defense, which I'll get into
Speaker 3: in a second. But no, I mean for me, like
Speaker 3: my father owned a construction company and he has always
Speaker 3: wanted me to do business. And at a very young age,
Speaker 3: I showed some aptitude for business, like random aside. When
Speaker 3: I was in elementary school, my nickname was the candy
Speaker 3: Man because I would go my candy at like Costco
Speaker 3: or what have you, and I would sell it to
Speaker 3: kids for five cents under what the vending machines charged.
Speaker 2: So you know, I I business mind.
Speaker 3: I try, and that's that's what I had in mind.
Speaker 3: And so you know, through high school that's what I
Speaker 3: was doing. And then I started undergrading University of Maryland,
Speaker 3: and I was a businessman, and I, to be honest,
Speaker 3: quickly became bored with it. And you know, I started
Speaker 3: I don't even remember what the aha moment was, but
Speaker 3: I started getting interested in like international affairs, foreign affairs,
Speaker 3: what have you. You know, I'd always been interested in
Speaker 3: military history and things like that, so you know, I
Speaker 3: took some classes I and then I picked up a second.
Speaker 3: I was like a I was there for business, but
Speaker 3: I also did like military content, history concentration, so I
Speaker 3: you know, and it's just like one thing led to another,
Speaker 3: and I decided I didn't want to do business anymore,
Speaker 3: and I wanted to work for the government, but I
Speaker 3: didn't know in what capacity. So the one thing I knew,
Speaker 3: you know, I gotta I gotta make myself attractive, So
Speaker 3: I need to learn a language. So ironically, I chose
Speaker 3: between Russian and Arabic. And at the time, and I'm
Speaker 3: dating myself, this is the late nineties, I was thinking, well,
Speaker 3: you know, Russia, there are ally there our friend, do
Speaker 3: I really need to learn Russian color very ironically, if
Speaker 3: anyone follows the news, And so I chose Arabic. And
Speaker 3: you know, I went to study abroad at the America
Speaker 3: University in Cairo, and I was there fall of two
Speaker 3: thousand and one, which so I was there for nine
Speaker 3: to eleven. So you know, I hit the ground two
Speaker 3: weeks later, nine to eleven pops off. It was just crazy.
Speaker 3: I remember there was no really CNN presence in the
Speaker 3: Middle East. It was it was actually dubbed over in Arabic,
Speaker 3: and my Arabic was not good then, so I had
Speaker 3: no idea what was going on. The Internet was down,
Speaker 3: I couldn't get a hold of anyone in the United States.
Speaker 3: I'm from the DC area, so everything was mass chaos,
Speaker 3: as you can imagine. So you know, that was really
Speaker 3: eye opening for me. So from that, you know, I
Speaker 3: got my degree. I got a degree in history, and
Speaker 3: I got a degree in political science, and I spent
Speaker 3: a year at the America University in Cairo, again learning
Speaker 3: Arabic intentsive Arabic, and then I spent semester American University
Speaker 3: in Beirut in Lebanon with the same goal, learning Arabic.
Speaker 3: And I just started applying to places.
Speaker 2: I mean, and it's not just you didn't just have
Speaker 2: a regular government job. I mean, you've been in the
Speaker 2: situation room, you've been in the in the heart of
Speaker 2: you know, government affairs, and I know you've spoken on
Speaker 2: this a lot, but I would love to hear more.
Speaker 2: I mean, you obviously rose to the top pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: You got yourself involved with I mean, the top people
Speaker 2: in our government when you're in the situation room. Talk
Speaker 2: to me about that, because that's always been fascinating to me,
Speaker 2: what it's like in the situation room when you're seeing
Speaker 2: things go down in real time with the real decision
Speaker 2: makers of the country one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: And you know, so NNGA you had to do. I
Speaker 3: started working at National Juice Basal Intelligence Agency, which is
Speaker 3: the satellites, the surveillance, the spy satellites Inmagury looking at
Speaker 3: other countries military and we had to do a twenty
Speaker 3: four to seven ops rotation at an op center. And
Speaker 3: that is the White House Situation Room, as you as
Speaker 3: you just got into, and you know, I feel like
Speaker 3: I was very lucky, you know, right place, right time.
Speaker 3: I had the Arabic which obviously helped. I had done
Speaker 3: a lot of high level briefing to include the direct
Speaker 3: to the director of NNGA on various things. At that point,
Speaker 3: I was covering the Middle East, and as we know
Speaker 3: after nine eleven, Middle East was huge in America's foreign policy.
Speaker 3: So in the White House Situation Room, which is a
Speaker 3: you know, a non partisan position, I started under the
Speaker 3: GW Bush administration, and I was there for the first
Speaker 3: two years of the Obama administration. So you know what
Speaker 3: the situation room is is again twenty four to seven.
Speaker 3: You know, op center and its main customer is the
Speaker 3: President of the United States. Doesn't matter what party. You need
Speaker 3: to keep them apprized of everything that's going on in
Speaker 3: the world, breaking news, especially that they're going to have
Speaker 3: to react to, and whether that reaction is you know,
Speaker 3: anything as they need to put out a statement to
Speaker 3: very drastic is in you know, we need to raise
Speaker 3: the alert level for our military forces based overseas. That's
Speaker 3: everything I mean. So you're working shifts, twelve hour days.
Speaker 3: It's a small team. There's not many teams. The teams
Speaker 3: are are they're all branches of the military, all branch
Speaker 3: of the intelligence community, their homeland security, it's probably in
Speaker 3: Homeland Security, CIA, FBI.
Speaker 2: The all the top general everybody, right.
Speaker 3: Everyone is there and they take what you know, it's
Speaker 3: been said. You know, it's the best and brightest. I again, humbly,
Speaker 3: I think I was right place, right time. Not a
Speaker 3: lot of people at n GA knew this thing even existed.
Speaker 3: That changed after I did my tour because I put
Speaker 3: them on blast. I said, your products are being used,
Speaker 3: I'm briefing the president on them, et cetera. And they
Speaker 3: got a lot more people applying to it, which is
Speaker 3: great because you want the best talent there. I saw
Speaker 3: a lot of crazy stuff while I was there, anything
Speaker 3: from you know, I was. I was there for stuff
Speaker 3: like you know, two thousand and nine, we had what
Speaker 3: we call Snowmageddon, which is this massive snowstorm hit the
Speaker 3: DC area and I'm I'm bringing this story up because
Speaker 3: it goes back to the to you know, the rookie
Speaker 3: if you will, to police and I had to go
Speaker 3: pick up other people on my team that live further.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I lived walking distance to the White House.
Speaker 3: So it was great. I walked. I never seen DC
Speaker 3: more peaceful, four feet of snow. It was great. But
Speaker 3: they were like, you need to pick up other members
Speaker 3: of your team. Here's this, this this special service police
Speaker 3: crews are SUV. You need to go pick up your team.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, well, there's is there anyone come with me?
Speaker 3: Like no, it's all you And I'm like wait what.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, I've been in the snow, you know.
Speaker 3: I had to try the lights, but I meant your
Speaker 3: noel was looking because I don't want to get in trouble.
Speaker 3: But you know, I'm driving the snow before we'll drive in,
Speaker 3: you know, picking up other members of my team. Because
Speaker 3: you have to be there no matter what, no matter
Speaker 3: what's going on, that seat has to be staffed.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this with the situation room, which
Speaker 2: is if you know, again, anybody would love to be
Speaker 2: a fly on the wall and that situation, you know,
Speaker 2: just to understand what's going on. So everybody is there,
Speaker 2: like you said, to service the president, I mean, I
Speaker 2: mean beIN lot and they talk about that when he
Speaker 2: was captured and everybody's there in the situation room, all
Speaker 2: these major events are taking place. Do people actually give
Speaker 2: resistance to maybe what the president is thinking he wants
Speaker 2: to do in the moment and he has to go
Speaker 2: with his gut and decide. Note you're wrong, you know,
Speaker 2: head general of you know army that you know navy.
Speaker 2: Where I'm gonna do it my way? Or is it
Speaker 2: pretty peaceful conversation or does it get really heated?
Speaker 3: Oh it's all about for sure. I mean, if you're
Speaker 3: what we call a duty officer in the situation room,
Speaker 3: which is what I was and then the head is
Speaker 3: the senior duty officer, the head of the watch team.
Speaker 3: Your only mission there is to provide information to someone
Speaker 3: like you're either being proactive, like for instance, like when
Speaker 3: this happened during Christmas, the underwear bomber, if you will,
Speaker 3: and that was December twenty fifth, two thousand and nine.
Speaker 3: You know, something pops off, we're getting alerts. We already
Speaker 3: know there's gonna be high level interest, so we're getting
Speaker 3: the who, what, win, or why how. We're drafting a
Speaker 3: one page what we call intel note to brief people
Speaker 3: on and then they take the information that we found
Speaker 3: and they make decisions based on that. So we're not
Speaker 3: offering any sort of advice, but they're making decisions based
Speaker 3: on what we're finding. So we got to make sure
Speaker 3: it's well sourced. We got to make sure, you know,
Speaker 3: we have to kind of anticipate the questions they're going
Speaker 3: to ask and have that information ready. Just a you know,
Speaker 3: a real quick story. When the Fort Hood shooting went
Speaker 3: down in November two thousand and nine, which the mass
Speaker 3: shoot againstant killed, thirteen wounded, thirty. I'm on that day.
Speaker 3: The head of the situation room comes in, says nick
Speaker 3: I need you to reach out. You're gonna make this
Speaker 3: one page document and we're going to brief the president.
Speaker 3: I was like, okay, sorry, how much time do I have.
Speaker 3: They're like, you have nine minutes and I'm like really,
Speaker 3: He's like okay. Fifteen fifteen minutes later, what we would
Speaker 3: call an ad the Homeland and Securities are And that
Speaker 3: was John Brennan at the time. He later went on
Speaker 3: to be Director of CIA. Comes in, takes the paper
Speaker 3: that I worked on, reaching out to all my contacts
Speaker 3: within the primitent Defense, et cetera to get as many
Speaker 3: facts as I can, takes it up to the Oval,
Speaker 3: and briefs the president on it. With with just that
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes to the second, you get a lot of
Speaker 3: things like that, But you are flying the wall. You
Speaker 3: do get to see And I knew someone that was
Speaker 3: in there for the first year of the last administration,
Speaker 3: which is very, you know, very contentious time. During the
Speaker 3: Trump administration, there was a lot going on. Anytime you
Speaker 3: get a new administration in it can be contentious if
Speaker 3: they're new to power and they don't really know what's
Speaker 3: going on. But there was he he told me some
Speaker 3: interesting stories. I will say that, so there's a lot,
Speaker 3: there's a there's there's the spectrum is open. The possibilities
Speaker 3: are endless as far as like there's person there's big personalities,
Speaker 3: and it doesn't matter who's an office, there's always gonna
Speaker 3: be like Rom and Manuel. If you remember are well
Speaker 3: are E Manuel from uh was exactly Rom was his brother.
Speaker 3: That was a personality.
Speaker 2: He was in there during the Obama administration.
Speaker 3: He was the first chief of staff. Like minor actions
Speaker 3: with him went from straight up I sort of got
Speaker 3: this is Ari Manuel like that kind of stuff to
Speaker 3: just very pleasant, Hey, how's the family, how the kids.
Speaker 3: It depends on the stress of the moment.
Speaker 2: Let's jump to the next chapter of your life. So
Speaker 2: you serve with the government for you know, how many
Speaker 2: years were you all.
Speaker 3: Together as seventeen, seventeen or eighteen?
Speaker 2: I think, wow, so an amazing run with the government.
Speaker 2: Then you have this passion for vintage watches that's probably
Speaker 2: been brewing this entire time, even while you're working for
Speaker 2: the government, and you're seeing all these different watches that
Speaker 2: all these different military officials and everybody's wearing, and I
Speaker 2: mean you're in encyclopedia when it comes to watches. We
Speaker 2: sat down, had lunch, and it was fascinating all the
Speaker 2: stuff that goes into watches. And you know, I think
Speaker 2: I spoken about on the podcast before. It's like one
Speaker 2: of my guilty pleasures are watches. I've always been fascinated
Speaker 2: by them, whether it's vintage or current. I have a
Speaker 2: little bit of a collection myself because I just enjoy it.
Speaker 2: I enjoy it. What gave you the confidence to sort
Speaker 2: of leave that world start your own business with DC
Speaker 2: Vintage Watches and go in, you know, be all in
Speaker 2: on that space sourcing, finding these watches, refurbishing them, getting
Speaker 2: them ready for sale, and building a business around it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not just you with a guilty pleasure. I
Speaker 3: mean after the pandemic when everyone was a lot of
Speaker 3: people were sitting at home and they had time, a
Speaker 3: lot of people got into it. It's been huge amongst
Speaker 3: like work spanning in the women's market because I think
Speaker 3: that they're neglected. I think that's fifty percent of the
Speaker 3: customer base. But anyway, no, I mean I had been
Speaker 3: huge into watches. My dad got me into them in
Speaker 3: high school and in twenty twelve I started DC Vintage
Speaker 3: Watches as a side hustle. So I'm doing the government,
Speaker 3: I'm doing all that stuff. You know. I wasn't that
Speaker 3: long after I got out of the situation room, I
Speaker 3: set this up. I had a little more time, thankfully,
Speaker 3: and you know, fast forward to twenty eighteen. I moved
Speaker 3: out to Los Angeles. My wife is a television producer,
Speaker 3: so we came out here, like she has. I wanted
Speaker 3: to give her the advantage. We had done my career
Speaker 3: for a while and wanted to have her chance. I
Speaker 3: was still working for the government. I was on loan
Speaker 3: for Department of Defense. We were doing logistics for embassies
Speaker 3: and nothing sexy. It was just very boring whatever. But
Speaker 3: it got us out here to LA. And as soon
Speaker 3: as I got to LA, I started doing what you
Speaker 3: do anytime you start a new job. You start networking.
Speaker 3: You start seeing here's here's influence, here's not. Here's who's
Speaker 3: in the watches, who's not, you know, and I started
Speaker 3: reaching out to, you know, actors that like yourself, that
Speaker 3: were huge in the watches. Daniel day Kim, which I
Speaker 3: considered to be a good friend of mine, is an
Speaker 3: amazing individual. He's huge into watches. He was one of
Speaker 3: the first people I developed a friendship with out here
Speaker 3: and it just went from there and it got to
Speaker 3: the point where I had done original research to figure
Speaker 3: out what the watch was that Bruce Lee wore in
Speaker 3: that martial arts legend.
Speaker 2: Talk about that watch, because I say, I know, I
Speaker 2: see the sticker on your wall or the picture on
Speaker 2: your wall behind of Bruce And we talked a bit
Speaker 2: about that. What's the famous that people should know that
Speaker 2: the most famous Bruce Lee watch?
Speaker 3: Bruce Lee? So it's it's nineteen seventies Siko six one
Speaker 3: three nine dash six zero one zero and it's a
Speaker 3: black dial on it. Beautiful watch. But there's there. I
Speaker 3: found all these pictures with him wearing this watch, did
Speaker 3: all my detective work whatever, So you know, I felt
Speaker 3: confident from that, and I publicized it and one of
Speaker 3: my customers happened to be a writer for GQ magazine,
Speaker 3: and I reached out to him and I said, you know,
Speaker 3: it was a natural segue. Hey, how's the watch? How
Speaker 3: how are you enjoying it? Everything good? I have this idea,
Speaker 3: here's this watch. You know, I found all these actors
Speaker 3: like will Young Lee, Ronnie Comedian, Ronnie Chiang, et cetera.
Speaker 3: You know, our mutual friend Nick Nonzales. Uh. You know,
Speaker 3: actors are into it. How about this. I can introduce
Speaker 3: you to some of these these these actors that are
Speaker 3: wearing the watch. You can interview them, I can give
Speaker 3: some background. We can do an article because he'd written
Speaker 3: in Watches. He's a fashion writer for GQ, and he
Speaker 3: took it to his editor. The editor loved it. They
Speaker 3: published it, and you know, obviously, you know, I do
Speaker 3: interest here. It led to some good business, but I
Speaker 3: also wanted to get the message out there's this cool watch.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Based on that in the previous the experience I have
Speaker 3: with the government, the doing the research, the sourcing stuff,
Speaker 3: you know, making sure it's good sources, the high level
Speaker 3: briefing the people to include you know, the vice president
Speaker 3: of both administrations of the president, et cetera. I had
Speaker 3: that competence to build these relationships. And you know, seeing
Speaker 3: this is before the pandemic, mind you, and seeing businesses
Speaker 3: kicking off, it was able. When my time was up
Speaker 3: with the tour that I had out here, i left
Speaker 3: government and you know, and I haven't looked back quite frankly,
Speaker 3: and it's been intensely rewarding because every day I get
Speaker 3: to talk with people like yourself that are you know,
Speaker 3: you just dork out and watches. I love it, and
Speaker 3: it's it's I'm getting paid to do something that I
Speaker 3: enjoy highly. And since then I've done all this research
Speaker 3: to find these other watches, like you know, the Special
Speaker 3: Forces guys war like Military Assistants Command Vietnam Sallie's Observation
Speaker 3: group that watched that. We got you for the Rookie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna talk about that because my watch.
Speaker 2: People commented as soon as you know, the season started
Speaker 2: last year, they're like, Tim has a new watch. Why
Speaker 2: does Tim have a new watch? And you know, we
Speaker 2: never were able to get fully into it, but talk
Speaker 2: a bit more. I mean that watch was from Vietnam.
Speaker 2: That's what I love, is like vintage watches, aren't you just
Speaker 2: It's not just finding a watch that's out there. A
Speaker 2: lot of these watches have insane stories. We'll go back
Speaker 2: to Bruce Lee's watching a second, But the watch I
Speaker 2: wear on the Rookie was a watch worn by a
Speaker 2: soldier in Vietnam. Not just any soldier, but a Special
Speaker 2: Forces soldier. It's got a compass on it. It's an
Speaker 2: incredible watch. And when he when Nick you know, got
Speaker 2: it to my propmaster and it was presented to me.
Speaker 2: It's in you know, the with the authentic band. That
Speaker 2: soldier's initials of writing was on the band, which blows
Speaker 2: my mind. You know, I'm wearing and I loved it.
Speaker 2: Because Tim's military past, there's obviously a real character placement here,
Speaker 2: but it's that watch has a history and it's it's
Speaker 2: seen more than I've ever seen in an intense way
Speaker 2: in its lifetime. Talk a little bit more about that watch,
Speaker 2: just for a quick second.
Speaker 3: And I remember our initial conversations where You're like, well,
Speaker 3: let me tell you, let me tell you a bit
Speaker 3: about Tim's character. I was like, hold on, I'm familiar,
Speaker 3: trust me. I watched it. I watched the rookie I
Speaker 3: know what I'm looking for here, and then we we
Speaker 3: I loved it because we hit around those ideas that
Speaker 3: would fit your character the watch.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the watch itself. Uh, they were again the Studies
Speaker 3: of Observation group. They were the soldiers. They were mostly
Speaker 3: Green Berets, but they were running behind enemy lines and
Speaker 3: the adjoit in the adjacent countries calling in air strikes
Speaker 3: on what was you know, uh, the colloc return beade
Speaker 3: hoo Chi men trail that was running all these resupplies
Speaker 3: from China into Northern Vietnam and eventually in South Vietnam.
Speaker 3: So they were, you know, they were hitting these logistics
Speaker 3: trails to stop that supply from coming in. But these guys,
Speaker 3: I mean, this is I mean, you have special forces
Speaker 3: these days that do crazy, amazing stuff, but back then,
Speaker 3: they didn't have all these you know, satellites were in
Speaker 3: their infancy, didn't have any of this this tactical support
Speaker 3: for these at today. And these guys were just like
Speaker 3: they're back. They're inserting with teams with like five people
Speaker 3: on this team. They're asserting low level insertion with helicopters
Speaker 3: or really high outs, opening halo jumps, parachuting into the countries,
Speaker 3: and a lot of them died, but they're you know,
Speaker 3: they're behind any lines, are surrounded by whole wretch of
Speaker 3: menster divisions of North Vietnamese Army regulars.
Speaker 2: They're badasses. And that's where my watch came from. People
Speaker 2: from from the rookie fans that watch Lived is Life.
Speaker 2: How do you find a watch? Tell me how a
Speaker 2: watch like that goes from a man's wrist in Vietnam
Speaker 2: and you know, we don't know. I guess if that
Speaker 2: that soldier lived or or didn't live, I guess are
Speaker 2: they well?
Speaker 3: And again, all the watches we find aren't necessarily from
Speaker 3: their risk, but some are. And if we got it
Speaker 3: from a wrist, they made it back.
Speaker 2: They made it back, Okay, it wasn't just like they
Speaker 2: were brought back. And so they made it back. And
Speaker 2: that watch was signed like it had the writing of
Speaker 2: the soldier on the band, so that one was at
Speaker 2: the war. So did that soldier eventually just sell it
Speaker 2: off at some point in time to make some money,
Speaker 2: and it made its way on the market.
Speaker 3: What you see now is you see a lot of
Speaker 3: estate sales.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Personally, some of these these members, some of these these
Speaker 3: military members are passing away. You know, they're in their
Speaker 3: seventies or in sixties, seventies, eighties, So you see a
Speaker 3: lot of that. So you really have to know you're
Speaker 3: setting you're setting alerts on everything. You're one in person,
Speaker 3: you're talking to other watch dealers. Some people know what
Speaker 3: they have, some people don't. It's things of that nature,
Speaker 3: and that's how you're finding it. I mean, it's like,
Speaker 3: so I did track down one soldier that I wrote
Speaker 3: a article for Watches of Espionage. Amazing, amazing resource. Definitely
Speaker 3: recommend your listeners check that out. And I was able
Speaker 3: to through my contacts within McFee SAUG was able to
Speaker 3: track down this soldier that had the same It wasn't
Speaker 3: the watch that you got, but he wore the same
Speaker 3: one and for an article for Watches of Espionage, and
Speaker 3: he just hit me amazing stories and they just talk
Speaker 3: about when these guys were behind enemy lines, they couldn't
Speaker 3: wear things that made them look immediately like they were American.
Speaker 3: So that's why they decided on Tsaiko because it was
Speaker 3: this plausible deniability in case they were captured it. You know,
Speaker 3: they maneuver room as far as what they were doing there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it wasn't just to watch. It was actually
Speaker 2: potentially a way of covering their identity a little bit.
Speaker 3: It was purposeful. So they weren't wearing DOWG tags. Everything
Speaker 3: they had was nondescript with no branding on it or
Speaker 3: branding that wasn't American. And that's why they chose Sakoh
Speaker 3: as well as you know, it's it's a badass watch
Speaker 3: that puts up with a lot of abuse.
Speaker 2: Wow. Now, didn't Daniel I believe got the Bruce Lee watch, right,
Speaker 2: because the Bruce Ley watches are pretty dope. Watch didn't
Speaker 2: he get one of those?
Speaker 3: Oh? He has one Ryan Chang Williams.
Speaker 2: And Bruce Lee's. We don't know what actually happened to that,
Speaker 2: isn't that part of the mystery, Like nobody really knows.
Speaker 3: And I actually reached out to his daughter Shannon, and
Speaker 3: they don't know because I was talking to some of
Speaker 3: her people as well, and they don't know. I guess
Speaker 3: it's one of those loss of the ages. And there's
Speaker 3: a lot of watches like this, like buzz Aldrin's Omega
Speaker 3: speed Master that he wore on the First Moon. Look. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he was sending into the Omega Museum and it disappeared.
Speaker 3: Really so it's like there's tons of watches like this.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, fascinating, fascinating. Now he also, you know Nick is
Speaker 2: taken care of You mentioned Nick Gonzalez. He was a
Speaker 2: mutual friend of ours. He took care of a lot
Speaker 2: of the watches on The Good Doctor. Worked with many
Speaker 2: of those actors and like you said, many others as well.
Speaker 2: And I think it's so cool when you know look.
Speaker 2: As an actor, we just get these props and a
Speaker 2: lot of them, especially in an early show when the
Speaker 2: budget's a little tighter. It's just a you know, a
Speaker 2: replica of some other watch out there. It has no meaning.
Speaker 2: It's just to we just throw it on people's wrists.
Speaker 2: But when you can build the props or the wardrobe,
Speaker 2: you know, anything around a character that continues to build
Speaker 2: on the story and make it authentic, that's what's super
Speaker 2: cool to me. And that's why I think listeners might
Speaker 2: find this very interesting, especially fans of the rookie. It's
Speaker 2: like it's not there's a lot of thought put into
Speaker 2: what we're what we're wearing, what we're doing, and trying
Speaker 2: to keep it real. And this was just another little
Speaker 2: piece to Tim's journey that I thought made it, you know,
Speaker 2: fun for fans to sort of discover. And we see
Speaker 2: it on every episode. I'm wearing you know, this watch
Speaker 2: is out there. So it's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: And the problem master I work with Mike Casey, look dope,
Speaker 3: he is amazing. Like people like me and others will
Speaker 3: see any we predu what is it?
Speaker 2: Just to some of the listeners, like you know a
Speaker 2: lot of people you know, even myself before I fully
Speaker 2: understood vintage watches. It's like, you know, you think of
Speaker 2: a Rolex, and rolexs are you know some of the
Speaker 2: top of the you know, top of the line watches
Speaker 2: out there right, everybody knows that brand. Why was Seko
Speaker 2: in the day such a top watch? What made Sako
Speaker 2: so special?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and it's it continues to this to
Speaker 3: this day. Actually, but it was is they kind of
Speaker 3: copied some of the things early on that they they
Speaker 3: came United States, they looked at someone like Ford and
Speaker 3: they were doing these like these automated assembly lines, and
Speaker 3: they were trying to bring down costs, so make a
Speaker 3: really awesome watch, but bring down costs a little bit
Speaker 3: to make it affordable to to the everyman that maybe
Speaker 3: can't afford a Rolex. And they got that reputation for that,
Speaker 3: and they they went they ran with it. And so
Speaker 3: you see a lot of their watches, like the uh
Speaker 3: the nineteen eighty Saco sixty three oh nine is huge
Speaker 3: even today in the military, I saw people with dood
Speaker 3: wearing those. It's this really robust dive watch that people
Speaker 3: swear by. I've got one. And so they basically made
Speaker 3: these instructible watches that I mean, that's a watch that
Speaker 3: came out. Now I'm dating myself. It's depressing, but coming
Speaker 3: on half a century and it's still ticking and it's
Speaker 3: still ticking. Well, you know, so that's part of it.
Speaker 2: What brings the value? Like you know, I learned this
Speaker 2: later in my sort of watch collecting path. You know,
Speaker 2: Rolex holds value or gains value? Right, uh, Philip, Philip, right,
Speaker 2: same thing holds value, gains value. Some watches, don't they
Speaker 2: just they just drop like this day and age watch.
Speaker 2: But if you go to vintage watches, what is what
Speaker 2: are the standout things for someone looking to get a
Speaker 2: vintage watch that you know, they know it's gonna even
Speaker 2: if it appreciates just a little bit over time, Right,
Speaker 2: What are things that, yeah, you're looking for?
Speaker 3: That's a fantastic question. A lot of it is going
Speaker 3: to be around the story, just like you said, Like
Speaker 3: I like background, I have the degree in history. I
Speaker 3: love it. So if you can if there's a story
Speaker 3: attached to it, people love that. I love it. So
Speaker 3: that is going to play like did this watch even
Speaker 3: if it's not that specific like exact watch, but it's
Speaker 3: the same reference had some important part in history. We
Speaker 3: talk about the mc vee sag, the Bruce Lee Seko's,
Speaker 3: there's there's the saiko what they call the Colonel Pogue,
Speaker 3: which was worn by an astronaut, but the gold dial
Speaker 3: up and out of space. People love the stories. So
Speaker 3: that's an aspect of it. And a lot of some
Speaker 3: of it is like was it is it made well?
Speaker 3: Like does it have a reputation for being robust? And
Speaker 3: like for instance, there's a watch that was worn in
Speaker 3: the second Rambo film. It's a chronosport UDT. I love
Speaker 3: the watch. It's black, it's handsome. The movement in it
Speaker 3: is not great, and so it's gonna it's gonna lose
Speaker 3: some value because of that, because it can't stand up
Speaker 3: to abuse unfortunately. So it's quality, it's the story, it's
Speaker 3: the legend, if you will, that's what will contribute to value.
Speaker 2: I think, so I think, and I think to build
Speaker 2: on that question, you know, as we're entering into the
Speaker 2: holidays here, it's a great time men women out there
Speaker 2: is are great holiday gifts, right, what's a good sort
Speaker 2: of if you were to give some advice entry level,
Speaker 2: But obviously you can see nick and you can talk
Speaker 2: to him more and learn more about the watches he
Speaker 2: can source and what he can get. But what are
Speaker 2: good entry level gift watches for the holidays and other
Speaker 2: things that you think could be you know, just something
Speaker 2: that our listeners should know.
Speaker 3: No, I can. I can give two good recommendations. I
Speaker 3: get right because I get asked this question. A lot
Speaker 3: one will be vintager one will be new. The vintage
Speaker 3: one is what they don't make him anymore. They stopped
Speaker 3: in twenty nineteen. But it's called a Saco SKX and
Speaker 3: it's there like it was, like their entry level diver.
Speaker 3: It either comes with a black bezel or what we
Speaker 3: call Pepsi bezel, so you know, blue and red. And
Speaker 3: if you're lucky, you can get him for five hundred.
Speaker 3: You can get We regularly sell the full box sets
Speaker 3: for eight hundred to eight fifty. If you want something
Speaker 3: that's that's new Taiko and the reference escapes me. It's
Speaker 3: like an SNP something, but the dial on it and watches.
Speaker 3: This espionage mate very drew a lot of attention to this.
Speaker 3: The dial on it is Arabic letters, so it's very
Speaker 3: automatic movement. You can get them all day, every day.
Speaker 3: On Amazon for maybe if you're lucky two fifty to
Speaker 3: three hundred. Uh. And it's it's a fantastic watch. It's
Speaker 3: very visible, it's it stands out on the wrist. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I swear by either one of those watches.
Speaker 3: I have them both my collection. I wear them all
Speaker 3: the time. But it really those are great entry level
Speaker 3: watches to get people into the hobby, to gift, to
Speaker 3: do whatever.
Speaker 2: I think enough as I go to your website and
Speaker 2: learn about what watches you have in stock, and you
Speaker 2: can source. I know, you can get almost anything if
Speaker 2: you're if you have if people are patient, right, he
Speaker 2: can dig and he can find. Talk to me about
Speaker 2: your new collection, the Sycamore Collection your word.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and obviously I would recommend that too, but that's
Speaker 3: you know, bring it up to me because it's it's
Speaker 3: a little self effacing, but no. So the Sycamore Watch
Speaker 3: Collection is a watch line that we came out with
Speaker 3: the beginning of this year, and there's two initial watches.
Speaker 3: There's one that's a little more demure, it's a little smaller,
Speaker 3: and then there's a larger one. Uh. The smaller one
Speaker 3: sold out quickly. We're in the midst of making some more,
Speaker 3: but they I was surprised how quickly they sold out.
Speaker 3: But back to the Arabic dio. Both of them feature
Speaker 3: Arabic numbers on the dio. The one we have now
Speaker 3: is built more towards like it for my background, there's more,
Speaker 3: you know, I've done the diplomacy side, have done the
Speaker 3: military side, the intelligence. An smaller one is more the
Speaker 3: you know, the diplomacy or at a state dinner or whatever,
Speaker 3: the White House or an embassy or what have you,
Speaker 3: goes well with the tucks. The other side, uh is
Speaker 3: you know that military backgroun. That's what we still have.
Speaker 3: That's called Sycamore the Wolf, and it's a GMT so
Speaker 3: it tells time in multiple places, automatic movement, but it
Speaker 3: has that Arabic dio and it's all black. So it's
Speaker 3: like this Matt Black PVD, very Special Force esque. And
Speaker 3: that was kind of a labor of love for me
Speaker 3: that I wanted to I'd always wanted to find this,
Speaker 3: but to do a watch like this because nothing was
Speaker 3: out there. So I was like, I make it myself.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna use the context. I have an industry. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna use the watchmakers that we employ we're gonna come
Speaker 3: out with it, and you know, Pew wrote about it,
Speaker 3: Campwolf and GQ shout out to him, wrote about it.
Speaker 3: Thanks for that. I ct it in the watch periodicals,
Speaker 3: wrote about it. And we're I think on our third
Speaker 3: or fourth batch of those, so we've sold probably about
Speaker 3: a hundred of them so far. But that's that's a
Speaker 3: labor of love. We're gonna come out with more watches
Speaker 3: right now, but they're in the planning phases. But yeah,
Speaker 3: that's the Sycamore Watch line.
Speaker 2: Ye. People want to reach you, what's the best way.
Speaker 3: Sure, the best way you can go to our website.
Speaker 3: It's www dot d C Vintage Watches dot com. Email
Speaker 3: sales at DC Vintage Watches dot com. We're on Instagram,
Speaker 3: Uh you know at DC Vintage Watches. Uh yeah, drop
Speaker 3: us a d M, send us an email whichever we
Speaker 3: can find whatever.
Speaker 2: You right, there's some amazing vintage watches out there, and
Speaker 2: I know we've been trying to get more on some
Speaker 2: of the cast of the Rookies who we're working on
Speaker 2: that too. You're gonna see more popping up on our show.
Speaker 3: Nick.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining me and being on the podcast,
Speaker 2: Love Talking Watches, with you, but also just the you know,
Speaker 2: your career journey and how people can pivot and change,
Speaker 2: you know, even later in life and find another passion.
Speaker 2: Not just not just that it's their new path and
Speaker 2: it's their only passion. It could literally be another passion.
Speaker 2: You had two great careers and one that's ongoing right now,
Speaker 2: and I love for listeners to hear that that the
Speaker 2: drive is real and you got to just keep, you know,
Speaker 2: evolving with the times.
Speaker 3: Now. It's been a labor of love and I feel
Speaker 3: very lucky that I'm still doing it.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Nick, appreciate you talk more soon, all right,
Speaker 2: I love you know, listen for any of you out there.
Speaker 2: I truly mean this when I say Nick is an
Speaker 2: encyclopedia with watches, So as a holidays approach, if it's
Speaker 2: something you're into, reach out to him. You will get
Speaker 2: so much great info to build on. Maybe you'll find
Speaker 2: that your your kid, or your your your husband or
Speaker 2: wife might have a new hobby in store that they
Speaker 2: want to dive into watches. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 2: this episode. If you have something you want to talk
Speaker 2: to us about, send us DM at he said he
Speaker 2: a d O, or email us at Ericinross at iHeartRadio
Speaker 2: dot com and until next time, see ya, Thanks for listening,
Speaker 2: don't forget to write us a review and tell us
Speaker 2: what you think.
Speaker 1: If you want to follow us on Instagram, check us
Speaker 1: out at he said. Ajav or sens at email Eric
Speaker 1: and Ross at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3: He said.
Speaker 1: AJAB is part of iHeartRadio's my Pultuda podcast network.
Speaker 2: See you next time. Bye,